Anna Grace - January 3

There is much to update today for Anna Grace. I was able to spend about 3 hours with Anna Grace yesterday & Brian spent most of the day & night with her. While I was visiting Anna Grace yesterday she needed a diaper change & while changing her diaper I was able to examine her bottom which really has an awful diaper rash. Her nurse & I rigged up the "oxygen tent" around her bottom and tried our best to let her little bottom air out. Because her white blood cell count is now normal they have stopped the antibiotics so hopefully her little tummy wiill settle today & give her little bottom a rest. Anna Grace is also extremely hungry and last night around midnight we think because she is hungry & her bottom hurts she was just not able to rest. She was crying and had worked herself up and her heart rate was extremely high. The nurse finally give her some pain meds to calm her down & help her rest. After she had fallen asleep Brian finally came home from the hospital.

We were up at the hospital about 8:30 this morning and she has ben resting on and off this morning. The nurse gave me some breast milk in a small medicine cup today & I have been able to dip her pacifier in the milk & then put it in her mouth. It's not like nursing or having a bottle, but it seems to pacify her and she has not gotten too worked up today.

This morning Anna Grace also had another echocardiogram which confirmed once again everything that all the other echocardiograms have shown. At around 11:00 today we met with the Anesthesiologist and then at 11:30 today we finally met with Dr. Bradley. Dr. Bradley went over with us what would occur tomorrow during her surgery.

Basically, at 6:00 am tomorrow anesthesia is going to come get Anna Grace & take her to the OR. Once in the OR they are going to give her a sedative through her existing lines to put her to sleep. Once asleep they will put her on a heart/lung bypass machine and also run a couple of IV's in her hands and/or feet. After they have her sedated & on heart/lung bypass the surgery will begin at 7:30 am. Dr. Bradley along with his team will be performing the surgery. There are three things they need to accomplish in tomorrow's surgery: (1) They will apply a patch made of human tissue to her aorta in order to make her aorta larger because right now it is too small to use. (2) They will make a "Y" connection off her pulmonary artery to her aorta in order to supply blood to her body (3) They will put in a shunt off the pulmonary artery made of goretex to supply blood to her lungs. This is called the "Norwood Procedure" and Dr. Bradley has the most experience at MUSC with this procedure. The surgery will last about 6 hours and then it will take them another hour or two to get her settled back in PCICU after the surgery. They will have to leave her chest open after surgery for several reasons and it could be anywhere from 2 days to a week before they are able to close her chest up. Dr. Bradley said that the most critical time for her will be during surgery and for 2 or 3 days following surgery - that is when most prolems will occur for her.

Dr. Bradley told us that she has been able to stay alive this last week because of the Prostaglandin that they have her on but that without this surgery she will die. It's hard to hear. It's hard to process. We don't know what God's plan is for our little girl, but we are thankful for the time that He has given us with her. We were able to share with Dr. Bradley that we are Christians and that Anna Grace was conceived in India while we were there sharing our faith and praying about serving the Lord in full-time missions. We asked Dr. Bradley if we could pray for him and he said yes so the three of us prayed tgether at Anna Grace's bedside.

When she wakes up next today Dr. Bradley said that we could hold her. So, we are waiting patiently for her to wake from her nap and then for the special time that we will have just holding her in our arms. We have not been able to hold her yet. As weary as we both are we are excited for this opportunity.

Thank you all for continuig to be faithful to pray for our little girl. Tomororw she will be 7 days old and going into a very serious opertaion to save her life. We will keep you updated tomorow as we find out information.

Specifically you can pray that: the Lord will heal our little girl completley and that she wil not need surgery, Should the Lord choose not to heal her that Dr. Bradley can rest well tonight and that the Lord will annoint him tomorrow and give him steady hands and to make no mistakes, that Anna Grace will tolerate the medicinces and the heart lung bypass machine, that Anna grace would not have excessive blessing during the surgery tomorrow, that they will be able to wean her from heart/lung bypass to a ventilotor directly after surgery, that the Lord will HOLD HER during surgery while her heart is stopped for 6 hours, that Brian & I will have strength and courage, that the Lord will be glorified tomorrow.